Week 28 - Great Britain F9 (Felixstowe 15K) - 2008.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Week 28 - Great Britain F9 (Felixstowe 15K) - 2008.

seagull · Hall of fame

Week 28 - Futures F9 ($15K) - Felixstowe

seagull · Hall of fame

Hope Jonny gets a WC?

john · Top national player

We should surely get a fair few qualifiers from that. Hopefully Fitzy can come through that section (no offense Dan S, members first!)

steven · Tennis legend

Jonny must have an SE for reaching Challenger semis this week, if he wants to play here.

I wonder who has got the WCs. Smethurst is the highest-ranked player in qualifying who wasn't on the original entry list (Willis and Grigorov weren't on it) but there were 13 players above him on the Alt list, 11 of whom had Felixstowe as their priority 1 event, including 6 Brits.

Dan Cox (Alt-4)
Sean Thornley (Alt-5)
Josh Milton (Alt-8)
Ian Flanagan (Alt-10)
Ed Allinson (Alt-11)
David Rice (Alt-12)

I guess there's an outside chance that Dan and/or Sean scraped in as DAs, but 5 out of 17 original DAs pulling out at the very last minute seems a bit unlikely. Flan won't have got a WC and was probably only going to play if he ended up on the DA list, i.e. won't have turned up just to play qualifying, but unless, say, Dan scraped a DA and the other WCs were awarded to the under-22 Brits on the list based on ranking (which also seems unlikely, given that the LTA have been tending to give at least one or two WCs to much lower/unranked Brits in recent Futures), one or more of the above must have missed out and decided not to play qualifying.

Also, Bloomers and Skups seem to have disappeared off the radar this week, which again seems odd given that this is a grass court tournament and they can't have gone to Newport and missed out on the qualifying cut there, because the cut was outside the top 1000.

Anyway, these mysteries aside, Josh (likely to be the top seed here), Chris and Bammy are all DAs here, though Chris has been quoted as saying his next tournament was going to be the Challenger, so may have pulled out at the last minute - I hope not - he needs to carry on racking up the points sooner rather than later in my view.

Here is the draw, produced from the ITF version without having a type in a single name (there's some Excel trickery involved, which should help in future in cases like this where virtually everyone in the draw is a Brit, though the rankings still have to be typed in) - everyone in QR1 is unranked and, as usual, all are GBR unless otherwise shown.

QR1:  Nick Cavaday   v Joshua Miller
QR1:  Orion Modebe   v Ashley Davies
QR1:  Alex Parry   v Alex Johnston
QR1:  Joe Cooper   v Luke Campbell
QR1:  Joss Espasandin (SUI)  v Mark Verryth (AUS)
QR1:  James Langford   v Lewis Barnes
QR1:  Scott Sears v Marvin Barker (AUS)
QR1:  Thomas Knights   v Michael Thompson
QR1:  Burnham Arlidge   v Matthew Short
QR1:  Ryan Horgan   v Mathew James
QR1:  Chris Priddle   v James Smith
QR1:  Darren Walsh   v Neil Pauffley
QR1:  Matthew Pearce   v Alexander Bull
QR1:  Ben Pritchard   v Rogan Egerton
QR1:  Ashley Watling   v Niall Angus
QR1:  Dominic Hodgson v Mark Fynn (ZIM)

QR2: (q1) Marcus Willis  WR 1099 v Cavaday or Miller
QR2: (q13) Timothy Bradshaw  WR 1598 v Modebe or Davies
QR2: Parry or Johnston v (q2) Alexei Grigorov (RUS) WR 1152
QR2: Cooper or Campbell v (q14) Stephen Hoh (AUS) WR 1598
QR2: (q3) Daniel Smethurst  WR 1156 v Espasandin or Verryth
QR2: (q10) Andrew Fitzpatrick  WR 1417 v Langford or Barnes
QR2: Barker or Sears v (q4) Ze Zhang (CHN) WR 1162
QR2: Knights or Thompson v (q11) Andrew Gregory (AUS) WR 1459
QR2: (q5) Kyle Brassington  WR 1175 v Arlidge or Short
QR2: (q15) George Coupland  WR 1687 v Horgan or James
QR2: (q6) Edward Corrie  WR 1279 v Priddle or Smith
QR2: (q9) Jonathan Kinsella  WR 1333 v Walsh or Pauffley
QR2: Pearce or Bull v (q7) Baptiste Bayet (FRA) WR 1279
QR2: (q16) Richard Wire  WR 1757 v Pritchard or Egerton
QR2: Watling or Angus v (q8) Clifford Marsland (AUS) WR 1313
QR2: Fynn or Hodgson v (q12) David Bidmeade (AUS) WR 1513

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Looking at the entry list, there is only 17 names on the current ITF version, so with 8 qualifiers and 4 WC's, that only adds up on 29 players...

2 SE as well, which may or may not have been taken, so if they haven't, it means the next 3 on the list will get in, leaving Cox and Thornley as alternates 1 and 2

I guess they've both got WC's or sneaked in with a withdrawal or 2, and I think Jonny Marray would have a WC here if he wants to play this (Don't think he gets the SE as he was out of the challenger by the time the sign for qualifying took place here)

Milton and Rice could have got the other 2 WC's, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Bloomers and Skupski got WC's here as they don't appear to have shown up anywhere else (challenger doubles draws withstanding, and they haven't been done yet)

And as no-one else springs to mind as a candidate for a WC (even the juniors, as they all seem to be in qualifying), I think the WC's have gone to a combination of Marray, Cox, Thornley, Milton, Rice, Bloomers, Skupski, depending on who wants to play this, and who made the cut

steven · Tennis legend

Oops, yes, you're right about Jonny not getting an SE because he was out before the qualifying sign in deadline. (I just re-read the SE rules again)

I wonder why there are only 17 main draw DAs on the acceptance list - could it mean that there are three spaces in Futures draws reserved for SEs (I thought it was only two, but maybe that's just Challengers and Futures have one more) - if so, it's not surprising that I've noticed that the top two Alts always seem to get in and it would make Cox and perhaps Thornley more likely to have scraped a DA if they only needed one or two last minute withdrawals, especially since Praibis (Alt-3) had this tournament as his priority 3 and may have got in somewhere else or decided not to make the trip.

steven · Tennis legend

john wrote:
We should surely get a fair few qualifiers from that. Hopefully Fitzy can come through that section (no offense Dan S, members first!)

LOL yes! Well, Fitzy must be in reasonable form, he won last week's British Tour event beating George Coupland in the Final.

Sheddie · administrator

Dan S is a member too

but he hasn't posted, while Fitzy has contributed a lot

steven · Tennis legend

Maybe they should just introduce a new rule whereby seeding for Futures qualifying is done on the basis of the number of posts on this forum in the last 12 months. wink

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Nick Cavaday beat Joshua Miller by 1 & 1 smile

QR1: Orion Modebe beat (WC) Ashley Davies by 7-6(6) 6-2 smile

QR1: Alex Parry beat (WC) Alex Johnston by 2 & 4 smile

QR1: Luke Campbell leads (WC) Joe Cooper by 7-5 2-1 suspended
QR1: James Langford beat Lewis Barnes by 7-6(5) 6-1 smile

QR1: (WC) Scott Sears lost to Marvin Barker (AUS) by 6-7(2) 6-1 6-4 cry

QR1: Michael Thompson beat Thomas Knights by 2 & 2 smile

QR1: (WC) Matthew Short beat Burnham Arlidge by 3 & 4 smile

QR1: Mathew James beat Ryan Horgan by 3 & 1 smile

QR1: (WC) James Smith beat Chris Priddle by 3 & 3 smile

QR1: Neil Pauffley beat Darren Walsh by 3 & 4 smile

QR1: Matthew Pearce beat Alexander Bull by 7-6(5) 6-4 smile

QR1: Ben Pritchard beat (WC) Rogan Egerton by 4 & 3 smile

QR1: Ashley Watling beat Niall Angus by 1-6 7-6(3) 7-6(2) smile

QR1: Dominic Hodgson beat Mark Fynn (ZIM) by 7-6(2) 6-3 smile

QR2: (q1) Marcus Willis WR 1099 v Nick Cavaday UNR
QR2: (q13) Timothy Bradshaw WR 1598 v Orion Modebe UNR
QR2: Alex Parry UNR v (q2) Alexei Grigorov (RUS) WR 1152
QR2: (WC) Joe Cooper UNR or Luke Campbell UNR v (q14) Stephen Hoh (AUS) WR 1598
QR2: (q3) Daniel Smethurst WR 1156 leads Mark Verryth (AUS) UNR by 3-2
QR2: (q10) Andrew Fitzpatrick WR 1417 v James Langford UNR
QR2: Michael Thompson UNR trails (q11) Andrew Gregory (AUS) WR 1459 by 4-6
- winner to play winner of (q4) Ze Zhang (CHN) WR 1162 v Marvin Barker (AUS) UNR (6-4 1-2)
QR2: (q5) Kyle Brassington WR 1175 leads (WC) Matthew Short UNR by 7-5 2-2
QR2: (q15) George Coupland WR 1687 leads Mathew James UNR by 7-6 0-1
QR2: (q6) Edward Corrie WR 1279 v (WC) James Smith UNR
QR2: (q9) Jonathan Kinsella WR 1333 v Neil Pauffley UNR
QR2: Matthew Pearce UNR v (q7) Baptiste Bayet (FRA) WR 1279
QR2: (q16) Richard Wire WR 1757 v Ben Pritchard
QR2: Ashley Watling UNR v (q8) Clifford Marsland (AUS) WR 1313
QR2: Dominic Hodgson UNR v (q12) David Bidmeade (AUS) WR 1513

Salmon · Tennis legend

RE: Week 28 - Great Britain F9 (Felixstowe 15K) - 2008.

seagull · Hall of fame

Looking at the forecast this week I can see this one moving indoors!!

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Greenleaf wrote:

Evans could have a WC, mind it. I hope Bloomers/Skupski don't have wild cards - it's terribly annoying when you can be a direct entrant but get wild cards at home events.

After he and Smethurst were apparantly found out late drinking (or something like that) before their boys doubles match at Wimbledon, I'd be very surprised if the LTA are going to reward him for that with a WC.

(According to the Mail on Sunday, but I can't find an online version of the article at the moment - it basically said that Evans and Smethurst were out late before their boys doubles match and the LTA found out about it, and so will punish them accordingly, with Evans getting a harder punishment because he's been in trouble with the LTA before - I think it mentioned something about having the NTC training base taken away from the, but can't really remember it all)

If it's true, then Evans and Smethurst can expect every punishment that the LTA throws at them, given how the LTA has reacted to incidents like this in the past, how utterly stupid it was to do it the night before a Grand Slam match in the town where the LTA is based, and how it doesn't reflect well on the LTA after all the good publicity they got with Laura winning the girls singles (but as it hasn't been picked up by any other media outlet so far, maybe there's more to the story than the Mail on Sunday article suggests)

Shhh · Challenger level

Mail Story:

While British tennis basks in the triumph of Laura Robson, there are more worrying signs that all is not well elsewhere in the junior ranks.

Britain's second and third ranked junior boys are facing suspensions for being out in a Wimbledon nightclub until the early hours on the day they were playing their second round doubles last week.

Daniel Smethurst

Daniel Evans

Lancashire's Daniel Smethurst, 17, and Warwickshire's Daniel Evans, 18, are said to have been out until 3am at a party full of Wimbledon on-site workers before they lost in straight sets to Australia's Bernard Tomic and Matt Reid.

Their escapade was hardly subtle as the function was for staff employed by IBM at the Championships and was also attended by staff from the Referee's office.

The pair have been banned from the National Training Centre at Roehampton for the time being.

Evans, the No 3 ranked British boy and arguably the most talented junior, is likely to be hit with a particularly severe punishment that could well see the Lawn Tennis Association suspend all funding and assistance with wildcards for the rest of this year.

He has plenty of 'previous' in this department and earlier this year was given a formal warning by senior LTA coach Paul Annacone about his attitude.

Despite that, he was given a wildcard into the main draw of the Artois Championships, where he embarrassed himself with a dismal first-round defeat to Belgium's Xavier Malisse and a code violation for ball and racket abuse.

Smethurst, who featured alongside Laura Robson in the final of the same junior warm-up event just before Wimbledon, may be treated more leniently.

His conduct is regarded as entirely out of character but he makes up an embarrassing 1-2-3 for Britain's top boys this year.

In January, current No 1 Marcus Willis was sent home from the Australian Open junior event for poor timekeeping and discipline.

The LTA will decide on the best course of punishment for Smethurst and Evans this week, once they have met the players' parents.